This video is funded by the National Disability Agency.
Keiran Rose here, and I’m an autistic writer from the United Kingdom and you can find my work at the autisticadvocate.com. I’m also a consultant and trainer and do lots of other stuff as well.
I was asked by a lovely lady called Melanie from Reframing Autism to talk about my stims and my sensory profile and how the kind of two relate and interconnect with each other and and actually it’s quite pertinent that she’s asked me this, because obviously at the minute we are going through Covid 19. Many of us are on some form of lockdown, as we are here in the UK as well and my stims have become something that have really come to the forefront of my mind, um because stimming is not only an expressive language, it’s also a way to regulate ourselves as well, and regulation has become so much more important when we are trapped within a house. Um, especially in my house, I’ve got a wife, I’ve got three children and so still I need to regulate a lot and because we’re all you know teetering on a knife edge about mental health and walking that tightrope and you know, I’ve been so close to burnout throughout this whole period and so stimming has become, you know it’s so important, it’s so important anyway generally, but it’s even more important now.
A lot of the things that I do as a kind of you know, way of regulating myself and getting out what I’m kind of feeling, especially when I’m frustrated or if I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed, um, a lot of those are verbal, so there’s kind of two that I want to talk to you about. The first one, it’s kind of embarrassing and if you are a fan of Star Wars, you will know who the character Chewbacca is. So I like to roar like Chewbacca, I do it a lot, I do it in my head and I do it verbally as well. So I am gonna demonstrate this now, so you might want to turn your microphone down. This is where I lose my voice and I can’t do it, but um, so my Chewbacca roar goes like this. I do that a lot. Yes that is embarrassing, I will not be watching this back, so if I mess this up or whatever then yeah, just just roll with it, just don’t tell me.
Secondary to that is that I like to sing. I sing all the time, I sing in my head and again I sing verbally, but I do it in a way which is really really irritating for my children, because if they come up to me to tell me something, before they’ve even got halfway through their sentence, usually what there’s something they’ve said has triggered a song in my head, a memory of a song and there is pretty much literally a song for every occasion. So I’ll start to sing back to them. I’ll, the song that has been triggered, I will sing that to them and completely wiping out what they were trying to tell me, which, on occasion, has been problematic when there’s been an emergency, but I just can’t help myself. It is it is a complete uncontrollable response to what’s going on and I do it when I’m out and about as well, um and you know this is where kind of masking, years of masking and the interplay between that happens, because I stop myself from doing it when I’m in public and I know that I consciously stop myself from doing and I know that I do it and it’s kind of, it’s still one of the aspects of masking that I’ve really struggled to overcome in terms of being myself. So, so yeah, so I sing.
But there is one more thing, because there, because I haven’t talked about how this kind of relates to my kind of sensory needs. Yes that’s what I was going to say, so with the verbal ones, with the singing and with the Chewbacca noise, I’m selectively mute and so words often, you know, I know what I want to say, but they get stuck here and especially in social situations, different situations that make me anxious, so when I can do a verbal stim, it feels so nice, it’s like it’s pushing a barrier out of the way, um and it’s become a bit of a scaffolding for me as well, because you know talking to camera is really difficult for me, public speaking is really difficult for me. You might not know that, if you know who I am and you followed some of my work, you might think, oh my god Kieran is great at talking on camera or whatever, but it’s it’s horrible, I hate it, it actually hurts me and so singing and using verbal stims is a way of kind of pushing through that, pushing that blockage out of the way. It sounds really bizarre, but it’s something that I’ve learned to do over time. So in terms of, but it feels really nice, when I sing, or when I make a loud noise you can feel the vibrations running up and, excuse my chins, you can feel the vibrations running up and down inside your throat and it just feels so good.
I have a physical stim that I do all the time as well and I’m going to get something to demonstrate. Now this one really really relates to my sensory needs. Actually, it’s only since Melanie asked me this question that it’s become really really apparent to me that why I do this. I’ve never really thought too deeply about it, I’m doing it right now actually. I’m going to move my hand because that could be embarrassing. I’m doing it right now and I’ll show you, I’ll demonstrate in a second that I have a massive over responsivity to touch, so if somebody touches me it hurts me, absolutely hurts me, it’s pain it’s like someone’s taking a branding iron out of the fire and has laid it on my skin. That’s what it feels like to me. Obviously that’s problematic in terms of relationships and growing up and all sorts of things like that and there’s so much context there, which I will not tell you now, because I’ve only got a short time, but one of the stims that I do is around care labels. Now this is my favourite hoodie, it’s upside down, I won’t show it to you, it’s threadbare. I wear all the time, I feel really comfortable in it, but it has a care label which is like this, and yeah actually, I don’t know if you can see the light shining off of it. It’s quite silky, it’s smooth and this is the kind of care label I like. So what I will do is I will rub the care label. So all my clothing has care labels like this and you’ll often see me kind of rooting around underneath my shirt or at the back of my thing and lots of people, especially as a child, people thought oh he’s really uncomfortable, like do we need to cut the label out and blah blah blah and actually no, it’s helping me probably, it absolutely helps me. I’ll make the same motion, but I’ve realised since, thank you Melanie, this has this really made me think. I’ve realised that because of the texture that I like to feel, it’s actually a replacement skin, it’s a replacement for human touch for me, so it meets a sensory need. Stimming like that meets a sensory need within me which is unobtainable in any other way because of that pain, because of what it makes me feel like. So yeah, so I was asked about my senses I hate talking to camera and I’ve waffled on for far too long and so I’m gonna go. I hope you’re well and I hope you’re staying safe. Um, the world is quite a scary place to be in at the moment, more than usual and so just look after yourselves and take care.
The Reframing Autism team would like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands on which we have the privilege to learn, work, and grow. Whilst we gather on many different parts of this Country, the RA team walk on the land of the Amangu, Awabakal, Bindjareb, Birpai, Whadjak, Wiradjuri and Yugambeh peoples.
We are committed to honouring the rich culture of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of this Country, and the diversity and learning opportunities with which they provide us. We extend our gratitude and respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and to all Elders past and present, for their wisdom, their resilience, and for helping this Country to heal.
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